Saturday, December 26, 2015

I'm pretty amazed with myself. Well... like I said in my previous post, this game has a pretty good learning curve... Which makes it great for not too skilled gamers like me. It gives replay value to the game... because achievements are not that way out of reach.

So yes. I managed to beat the first boss, Terminatrix, in Hard Mode, with Zero Shield activation. And not once, but twice. First for the badge, then second time for the video recording.

The first boss isn't take hard to do for the bloodless or zero shield achievement. So long as you keep your distance, the long range attacks are pretty slow and you have plenty of forewarning on when to dodge. Nonetheless, I've had to try quite a few times, because of silly mistakes nearing the end of the battle... including once when I've downed the boss, but stood too up front and when the dead body appeared, it slammed right into my avalon. There goes my badge sigh. Once I hit the 'strike' button instead of the dodge too... Other times the movement pad wasn't responding because my finger has trailed too close to the edge... The problems of playing games on the phone. My Christmas wish list...: A Mfi controller for the iPhone 6s.

Alright. Here's the video:

There's basically just three attacks from the boss if you stay as far as possible.

The meteors --> Big red marks on the floor. Run away or dodge them!

Fire breathing --> Watch the head of the boss, if there's smoke coming out, he'll breath fire so don't stand in the center. If you don't stand in the center, and he won't breath fire. Some games I didn't see any fire breathing at all.

The laser --> Red mark on the ground where you are standing. If you keep moving, it'll miss. Or you can dodge left/right.

If you move up closer, he'll smack you with his left or right hand. If you wish, you can move up front to taunt the boss, then dodge back when the hand comes smacking so you can use your melee attacks on the arm. I just played it safe for my badges.

Ark equips with ballistic damage would definitely help in getting those badges.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Much of my gaming now has switched to mobile. Simply because I own a mac, and am getting too lazy to switch over to XP. Well actually, my own mac has been semi-retired. It's 5 years old and really, very slow. I'm using my dad's mac now, and there's no XP installed here...

So. After struggling with a deficit 4s after my stupid 5s broke down in Jan this year, I finally got my 6s about two months back. Been enjoying my time playing Vainglory and tons of other games... But today I'd like to talk about Implosion. It's picked by Apple as one of the best apps of 2015, and I'd say it really lives up to it's name. (The game is on Google Playstore as well.) Check out their official website here.

I've finished a play through on easy mode, and I must say I've really enjoyed the game. That it is engaging enough for me to finish the entire game says a lot. I'm not particularly good at fighting games since I tend to smash buttons more than strategise... but alas this game had a pretty good difficulty curve. Bosses and enemies (XADA) have their distinct attacks and therefore ways to doge their attacks. Nonetheless sometimes my reaction is just... erm... not very fast. Still, I never had to grind for long. I did grind a little when I got stuck on Goldie, but after reading up about her attacks (yes, I cheated), and re-fitting my Arcs, I beat her with no trouble. (On easy mode that is XD) For the better players, there's a hard mode, and an expert mode unlocks after finishing the game.

The graphics are great, and I like the fluid battle movements. It's not groundbreaking, mind blowing graphics (then again, with all the technological advances already in place, I'm not sure what would blow my mind anymore)... but keep in mind that it's a mobile game. And by mobile game standard, this is pretty darn, solid good. It's certainly miles above your average candy crush, cow farming variety.

What really stood out for me though, is the great storyline. There are RPG games aplenty in the mobile scene, but this is the best storyline I've seen to date. It tells of Earth being invaded by alien lifeforms, and you're the last hope of humanity. Only that they tell it way better, and in a much less cliche way than I do.

You play as Jake, controlling the warmech Avalon. A second warmech can be unlocked once you've enmassed 42 badges - aka achievements from missions. I'm still working on that though. Currently at just 24 badges.

The 'Arc' system. Basically, your equips.

There's alpha, beta, gamma and lambda equips. The lambda equips comes with 1, 2 or 3 skills. Each warmech has their set of unique 6 skills, and each equipment can come with any of the skills. My personal favourites for Avalon are Jagular Rush and Precognition Protocol. Nano Bless is good to have too, and RX-Disintegration is great for levels where enemies have loads of shielding. I've get to get an equip loaded out with my preferred combination of 3 skills though!

Some game play screen shots.

A video of my gameplay. Yes yes... I know I'm not very good at such games. Plus, after having my recording get disrupted three times due to various notifications (some notifications still come on despite the Do Not Disturb mode being turned on... I'm looking at you, Gmail) I was getting pretty darn pissed.

Oh, I've not mentioned this yet... but the guys who made Implosion are the very same folks who made the music hits Cytus and Deemo. Turns out that they make action games really well too! I'd never have guessed! (Oh, and they are Taiwanese too, way to go!)